US Rep. LaMonica McIver to be arraigned on assault charges stemming from immigration center visit
U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver is set to be arraigned on federal charges Wednesday, accused of assaulting and interfering with immigration officers outside a New Jersey detention center during a congressional oversight visit at the facility . She has said she plans to fight the charges.
McIver, a Democrat, was charged in a complaint by interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, following the May 9 visit to Newark's Delaney Hall, a privately owned, 1,000-bed facility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses as a detention center.
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Forbes
18 minutes ago
- Forbes
Three Ideas To Boost Economic Growth And Reduce Government Deficits
NEW YORK - NEW YORK - JUNE 1: A man walks near the National Debt Clock in Midtown Manhattan on June ... More 1, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/VIEWpress) The federal budget is a mess, with federal debt held by the public at $29 trillion and counting. States cannot print money and borrow the way the federal government can, but some of them still have deficit problems. Maine, California, Colorado, and New York are just a few of the states facing large deficits over the next few years. Fortunately, there are policy reforms both the federal government and state governments can implement to boost economic growth and reduce deficits. In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper, economists Douglas Elmendorf, Zachary Liscow, and R. Glenn Hubbard examine several policies with the potential to increase economic growth and reduce deficits. The general idea is that increasing total factor productivity (TFP)—the primary driver of economic growth—increases incomes and thus tax revenue. If this can be done in a way that does not involve too much government spending (or revenue losses) then the higher tax revenue would lower the deficit. Using estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the authors calculate that increasing TFP by 0.5 percentage points each year for the next decade would reduce the federal budget deficit by 1.2% of GDP and make debt held by the public around 12% of GDP lower than it otherwise would be. The authors discuss seven policies in their paper, but I am going to focus on the three that seem to have the most potential. And while the paper focuses on the policies' impacts on federal deficits, the same growth effects would also impact state budgets. The first policy idea is making it easier to build housing. Economists know land-use regulations that restrict the supply of housing—including minimum lot sizes, parking requirements, and prohibitions on apartments, duplexes, and other forms of multi-family housing—make housing more expensive. As the authors explain, reducing the cost of housing construction would lead to more housing being built, which has downstream impacts on the demand for appliances, furniture, carpet, decks, and all the other things that make a house a home. The increase in housing construction and the production of complementary products would directly increase GDP all else equal. In addition to this direct effect, more housing in the most productive cities would make it easier for workers to move to take higher paying jobs. A few studies estimate that this mobility effect would increase U.S. GDP by roughly 8%. New residents also have a significant impact on state budgets. A recent report from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation shows that adding new residents can increase a state's revenue by billions of dollars. For all these reasons, it is a good idea for policymakers to reform regulations so we can build more housing in the places people want to live. State and local governments control most of the regulations that restrict the supply of housing. Over the last several years, many states have implemented reforms to make it easier to build, including Montana, Florida, California, and Arizona. This year, Texas passed several laws that will make housing more affordable in the Lone Star state. Other states should adopt and build on these reforms. A second and related idea discussed by Elmendorf, Liscow, and Hubbard is permitting reform for construction projects. In recent years, long permitting times have gotten more attention, and for good reason. Federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can delay projects for years. A recent report from the Council on Environmental Quality, which oversees agency implementation of NEPA, found that 61% of environmental impact statements still take more than two years to review despite a law specifying a two-year deadline. Clearly, we need more changes at the federal level. States have permitting problems, too. Earlier this year, wildfires destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles County. California governor Gavin Newsome promised to fast-track permitting so families could rebuild and get on with their lives. Five months later, only 33 building permits have been issued and not one house has been rebuilt. This is unacceptable for a country as wealthy as the United States. Long permitting times increase project costs since money is tied up in resources—land, equipment, and buildings—that are not generating returns. As the authors note, shortening permitting times would accelerate projects already underway as well as increase the number and size of future projects by increasing the return on investment. And since reforming regulations and processes typically does not require a lot of government spending, the growth we create by shortening permitting times is likely to help bring down government deficits. A third idea to boost economic growth and help reduce government deficits is immigration reform. Allowing more foreign workers with advanced degrees in science, engineering, and math to live and work in America would increase U.S. innovation and productivity. The NBER study calculates that a one-time increase of 200,000 additional high-skill immigrants would reduce debt held by the public as a percent of GDP by 2% after thirty years. Adding more high-skilled immigrants every year instead of just a one-time increase would have a larger effect. In addition to increasing innovation and productivity, immigrants have a direct effect on government deficits. High-skill immigrants, like high-skill natives, have a positive effect on government budgets on average since they pay more in taxes than they consume in government services such as welfare benefits or Social Security. One study estimates that over a decade we could reduce federal deficits by $25 billion per 100,000 additional people who come to America to work. Another recent report from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP) also makes the case for more immigration to increase growth. The basic formula for economic growth is to add workers and make workers more productive. The U.S. fertility rate is falling, and without a sudden rebound the best way to add workers will be through immigration. From 2013 to 2023 about half of the growth in the U.S. civilian labor force was due to immigrants, as shown in the figure below (red bar). Without immigration, U.S. labor force growth would slow and eventually turn negative. Labor force growth Immigrants also tend to be incredibly entrepreneurial. According to the CTUP report, nearly half of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by foreign-born or second-generation Americans. These immigrants and their children create jobs for native-born workers in addition to the valuable new goods and services their companies create for consumers. Federal policymakers should reform our immigration system so more high-skill immigrants can create and grow their companies in America. Government budgets throughout the United States are a mess. From cities such as Chicago to the Halls of Congress, policymakers struggle to keep spending in line with revenue. Economic growth cannot solve all these budget problems, but it can help. Policy changes that make it easier to build housing, reduce permitting times, and increase immigration would boost output, incomes, and tax revenue. If we could get government spending under control, too, we would have a real shot at fixing our debt problem.
CBS News
19 minutes ago
- CBS News
Detroit police officer struck by vehicle while directing traffic out of fireworks area
Storm damage in Metro Detroit; Dr. Hoover murder court proceedings; and other top stories Storm damage in Metro Detroit; Dr. Hoover murder court proceedings; and other top stories Storm damage in Metro Detroit; Dr. Hoover murder court proceedings; and other top stories The Detroit Police Department is investigating the circumstances of one of its officers struck by a car while directing traffic after Monday's fireworks show. The Michigan State Police, Metro Detroit post, said one of its tactical bike team members returning from Belle Isle to the Tri City Post saw the collision about 11:40 p.m. along I-75 near Holbrook. The trooper tried to stop the motorist. The driver briefly stopped, then kept going, lost control of the vehicle and crashed. The driver tried to run off but was quickly taken into custody, the report said. The suspect was turned over to Detroit Police Department. "Great work by the trooper taking this driver into custody," the MSP report said. In the meantime, Detroit Police is continuing its investigation over a shooting just outside a plaza fireworks viewing area that night in which two people were injured.
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump draws Pentagon into Bush-era Groundhog Day over Iran as he shuns intelligence to justify war
George W. Bush and his administration of neocons spent years building a spurious case for the war in Iraq. They collated sketchy intelligence about supposedly hidden weapons of mass destruction, fed it to a pliant press, went through the motions of seeking United Nations resolutions and formed a ramshackle coalition of the willing before going to war. It took Donald Trump all of five seconds to create his own WMD scandal. That came aboard Air Force One Tuesday morning when he rebuked his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, for sharing a U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran was not seeking a nuclear weapon. 'I don't care what she said, I think they were very close to having one,' he told the press corps. It's Groundhog Day in the Pentagon. The U.S. stands on the precipice of joining another war in the Middle East to relieve another dictatorial regime of its non-existent deadly arsenal, but there are at least some procedural differences this time around. In rejecting the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies in favor of his own instincts, Trump appears to want to skip every step in the Manufacturing Consent handbook and declare war based on instinct alone. Rather than send Marco Rubio to the United Nations with satellite photos, audio recordings and vials of undisclosed substances as Bush did with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Trump opted to simply declare that Iran could never have nuclear weapons and begin mobilizing the U.S. military to act in support of Israel's ongoing attack. Whereas Powell had a well of intelligence to draw on, however faulty, to build his argument in front of the world, it seems Trump has barely even glanced at his own agencies' work. Gabbard testified to Congress as recently as 26 March that 18 U.S. intelligence agencies continue to assess that 'Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.' Trump's flippant dismissal of that assessment is no small thing. It could be the determining factor in whether the U.S. joins a war against a sovereign nation, potentially putting American lives at risk across the Middle East and beyond. Rather than busy himself with studying the intelligence that should weigh on those decisions, the president spent most of the last few days posting erratically on social media, calling on 10 million people who live in Iran's capital Tehran to evacuate, for Iran's 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,' and even threatening the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. 'We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,' he wrote on Truth Social. Trump's position is all the more surprising given that his political rise was fuelled in part by his positioning as a critic of the so-called 'forever wars' of the Bush era, particularly the Iraq War. He shocked his fellow candidates during the Republican primary debates in 2016 when he accused them all of being complicit in the falsehoods that led to the war. 'I want to tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction,' he said. This time around, Trump appears to be playing the opposing role in building a faulty premise for a destructive war in the Middle East. MAGA billed itself as the destroyer of neoconservatism, but now in the White House and with their hands on the missile launcher and the B-52's they look and sound much the same. This is also the same person who said of Barack Obama in 2011: 'Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected — and as sure as you're sitting there — is to start a war with Iran.' Trump's role in the build-up to this war didn't begin this week, either. His decision to dismantle a previously successful nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers paved the way for the carnage of today. In 2015, then-President Obama and a coalition of world powers managed to broker an agreement with Iran in which it agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program, place limits on how much uranium it could enrich, and open its facilities to inspections in return for sanctions relief. China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and Iran all signed on to the deal — a remarkable feat of diplomacy. All believed the deal was working. Israel believed the deal was too lenient, and then-presidential candidate Trump campaigned on a promise to completely dismantle it. In 2018, as president, Trump pulled out of the deal and initiated new sanctions against Iran. Tehran started to increase uranium enrichment and build up its stockpile once more, and removed monitoring equipment from nuclear facilities. Over the past few years, Iran increased its enrichment to record levels of purity, close to the level needed to make a bomb. Still, U.S. intelligence agencies did not change their assessment that Iran was seeking a nuclear weapon, and the Trump administration was engaged in a new round of talks over the program. At the same time, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was signaling that he was readying an attack on Iran. He has claimed for decades that Iran was on the brink of building a nuclear weapon, a development that he insisted required a military confrontation to avoid. As early as 1992, as a member of the Israeli parliament, he claimed Iran was 'three to five years' away from a bomb. Three years later, in a book titled 'Fighting Terrorism,' he again claimed Iran was 'three to five years' away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. In 2012, he gave a widely mocked speech to the United Nations in which he held up a picture of a cartoon bomb while claiming Iran was roughly one year away from building a bomb. None of those warnings came to pass, but they were treated no less seriously. While Netanyahu believed military action was the only way to remove the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, he had been kept at bay by successive U.S. presidents. Earlier this year, it appeared he was closer than ever to making that move. In April, he asked Trump for the 30,000-pound American GBU-57 bunker buster bomb, which can only be carried by U.S. aircraft, to destroy a nuclear site deep underground at Fordo, according to the New York Times. Trump reportedly refused and asked Israel to allow his negotiations a chance. But as the talks dragged on through the months, Trump lost patience. When Israel decided to launch its attack this month, the U.S. and Iran were days away from meeting again. No new intelligence showing an increased nuclear threat has been presented or claimed by the Trump administration beyond the president's passing comment on Air Force One. And senior administration officials told the New York Times they were unaware of any new intelligence showing a rush to build a bomb. There are obvious differences with Iraq, of course. This war has already begun. Israel has already taken out Iran's air defenses and is bombing military and nuclear infrastructure across the country at will. It was Israel's fait accompli that appears to have brought Trump around. The war has already begun. Trump may be able to join it in a limited capacity and claim victory, but the days of claiming the mantle of an anti-war president are over.
